ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the rather dissimilar structural origins of environmentalism in West and East Malaysia and their convergence in recent times on a range of issues. In particular, the inclusion of social and economic well-being in environmentalists’ concerns has allowed them to forge alliances across civil society. The widening of the meaning of ‘environmental’ to include social and economic systems (not only the biological system) thus allows us to argue that environmentalism as a social movement is not simply a middle-class phenomenon, as it has been described in Malaysia (Ramakrishna, 2003), but rather has a more diversified base – including the poor or disenfranchised in urban and rural settings. Changes related to the curtailment or loss of access to the means of livelihoods – especially land, forests and water – have led to a defence of the environment among those whose livelihoods are dependent on natural resources (Majid Cooke, 2003; 2012).
